Interpreting social movements: Bolivian resistance to economic conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund

Interpretive anthropology taken as a goal in itself tends to preclude the concrete, historically situated analyses that are the core of ethnographic studies. However, attention to specific aspects of action and discourse in the various moments of a social movement's unfolding may enhance our understanding of that movement. This article analyzes a protest against conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund for the payment of Bolivia's national debt, seeking to show how the various participants interpreted the events in which they were involved. In trying to assess the movement's impact on the nation, the author interviewed leaders and followers and consulted numerous media reports during the three weeks of crisis. She concludes that textual interpretation is useful only when employed along with traditional methods of participant observation and the eliciting of informants' own interpretations. The analysis of complex social movements, that is, requires a description of people's responses at different moments in time, a situating of the participant observer in the events, and the inclusion of interpretations by the media. By eliciting a reflexive, multivocalic array of texts, the anthropologist can make new interpretations and build on past constructions as the historical context changes. [interpretive ethnology, social movements, Bolivian mining communities]